If we just get a Democratic Congress in 2006, that will make the difference. And if it does not make the difference, then people will realize this too...andydes wrote:If you're right, then people will only realise it if Obama gets in. Otherwise they'll keep on blaming the reps and think that everything will be OK once the dems eventually get voted in again.b0unce wrote:
Doesn't matter how this show turns out - it's business as usual.
and you know this.
Good enough reason to vote for obama in, I'd say. It's not like a third party stands a chance.
ot... Watch her first interview - Palin w/ Charley Gibson
The Falling Land
by Chris Floyd
There is, apparently, to be no end to our falling. No bottom to the pit of moral nullity through which we keep plunging, no act of evil which we will not accept, and countenance, and even cheer.
At one time, it required great lies -- elaborate, monstrous deceits, wrapped in myths of goodness and light -- to disguise the brutal machinations of raw power. Otherwise, it was thought, the people might rise up in anger at the crimes being committed in their name, thus threatening the primacy and privilege of the elite.
But this proved to be unnecessary in the end. The foulest deeds could be done in broad daylight, in full view of the world, before the eyes of our children, without the slightest consequence for the perpetrators. The crowd would applaud, or, at worst, simply shrug and move on.
Actions and policies drawn from the horror stories of history -- things which the people had been taught to abominate from the day they were born -- were freely and openly embraced.
The Nazis launched unprovoked wars of aggression and despoiled whole nations. So do we now; who cares? The Gestapo and the KGB snatched people from the street and held them without charges in secret prisons, tortured them with brute force and with exquisitely calibrated techniques approved by the highest authorities. So do we now; who cares? The Soviets spied without qualm or restraint on their own people, no warrants needed, no evidence required, just a nod from some faceless official in the security organs. So do we now; who cares? The Nazis believed that the national leader is beyond the law, that any order he gives is rightful and just and cannot be punished, simply because he has given it. So do we now; who cares? The Soviets and the Nazis treated protests against the established order as security threats and acts of terror, and repressed them with mass arrests and police violence. So do we now; who cares?
All of these things, and many more besides, have been done and are being done by the government of the United States today, with either the full-throated approval or the meek acquiescence of the political opposition and the nation's institutions. The people too seem largely in agreement, or completely indifferent. We have just finished a primary campaign in which tens of millions of people voted for candidates who support the system described above in almost every particular -- quibbling about some of the details and tactics perhaps, but expressing absolutely no dissent from its basic premises.
The two major candidates left standing after this appalling process are as similar in policy and philosophy as it is possible to be and still maintain a semblance of "choice" in the election. Both support the continuance and expansion of the "War on Terror." Both pledge to use massive, lethal, violent force, at any time, anywhere in the world -- with no options, not even the nuclear one, taken "off the table" -- in the service of ever-nebulous and self-defined "national security" interests. Both support the warrantless surveillance of American citizens, and immunity for vast conglomerates that collaborate with the state in blatantly illegal activity. Both believe that even those who have not committed murder can be executed by the state. (And neither has said a single word about the shame of America's prison system: more than 2 million people behind bars, more than any other nation on earth, in both sheer numbers and proportionately, and rivalled historically in those numbers only by Stalin's gulag at the height of the purges.)
Both support a continuing American military presence in Iraq, under one euphemism or another. Both mouth pieties about opposing torture and upholding the rule of law, but neither of them applied their considerable powers as senators -- or their great personal popularity -- to make the slightest move to bring the perpetrators of the White House-approved torture regime to justice. (McCain has even voted explicitly to allow the CIA to torture captives.) Both have just finished conventions at which American citizens seeking to exercise their constitutional rights of free speech and free assembly were herded by armed police into wire pens (dubbed, with sinister irony, "free speech zones"), harassed, arrested, in cases beaten, invaded, and charged with thought crime and terrorism. Both support, and are supported by, the same corporate interests whose predations and corruptions have shredded the social and civic fabric of the nation and are now leading millions into penury.
Where are the hands, as in Rilke's poem, that can hold up all this falling? There are none. And so we keep falling, down and down and still farther down.
by Chris Floyd
There is, apparently, to be no end to our falling. No bottom to the pit of moral nullity through which we keep plunging, no act of evil which we will not accept, and countenance, and even cheer.
At one time, it required great lies -- elaborate, monstrous deceits, wrapped in myths of goodness and light -- to disguise the brutal machinations of raw power. Otherwise, it was thought, the people might rise up in anger at the crimes being committed in their name, thus threatening the primacy and privilege of the elite.
But this proved to be unnecessary in the end. The foulest deeds could be done in broad daylight, in full view of the world, before the eyes of our children, without the slightest consequence for the perpetrators. The crowd would applaud, or, at worst, simply shrug and move on.
Actions and policies drawn from the horror stories of history -- things which the people had been taught to abominate from the day they were born -- were freely and openly embraced.
The Nazis launched unprovoked wars of aggression and despoiled whole nations. So do we now; who cares? The Gestapo and the KGB snatched people from the street and held them without charges in secret prisons, tortured them with brute force and with exquisitely calibrated techniques approved by the highest authorities. So do we now; who cares? The Soviets spied without qualm or restraint on their own people, no warrants needed, no evidence required, just a nod from some faceless official in the security organs. So do we now; who cares? The Nazis believed that the national leader is beyond the law, that any order he gives is rightful and just and cannot be punished, simply because he has given it. So do we now; who cares? The Soviets and the Nazis treated protests against the established order as security threats and acts of terror, and repressed them with mass arrests and police violence. So do we now; who cares?
All of these things, and many more besides, have been done and are being done by the government of the United States today, with either the full-throated approval or the meek acquiescence of the political opposition and the nation's institutions. The people too seem largely in agreement, or completely indifferent. We have just finished a primary campaign in which tens of millions of people voted for candidates who support the system described above in almost every particular -- quibbling about some of the details and tactics perhaps, but expressing absolutely no dissent from its basic premises.
The two major candidates left standing after this appalling process are as similar in policy and philosophy as it is possible to be and still maintain a semblance of "choice" in the election. Both support the continuance and expansion of the "War on Terror." Both pledge to use massive, lethal, violent force, at any time, anywhere in the world -- with no options, not even the nuclear one, taken "off the table" -- in the service of ever-nebulous and self-defined "national security" interests. Both support the warrantless surveillance of American citizens, and immunity for vast conglomerates that collaborate with the state in blatantly illegal activity. Both believe that even those who have not committed murder can be executed by the state. (And neither has said a single word about the shame of America's prison system: more than 2 million people behind bars, more than any other nation on earth, in both sheer numbers and proportionately, and rivalled historically in those numbers only by Stalin's gulag at the height of the purges.)
Both support a continuing American military presence in Iraq, under one euphemism or another. Both mouth pieties about opposing torture and upholding the rule of law, but neither of them applied their considerable powers as senators -- or their great personal popularity -- to make the slightest move to bring the perpetrators of the White House-approved torture regime to justice. (McCain has even voted explicitly to allow the CIA to torture captives.) Both have just finished conventions at which American citizens seeking to exercise their constitutional rights of free speech and free assembly were herded by armed police into wire pens (dubbed, with sinister irony, "free speech zones"), harassed, arrested, in cases beaten, invaded, and charged with thought crime and terrorism. Both support, and are supported by, the same corporate interests whose predations and corruptions have shredded the social and civic fabric of the nation and are now leading millions into penury.
Where are the hands, as in Rilke's poem, that can hold up all this falling? There are none. And so we keep falling, down and down and still farther down.
The proles... live in squalor and poverty. They are kept sedate with vast quantities of cheap beer, widespread pornography, and a national lottery, but these do not mask the fact that their lives are dangerous and deprived — proletarian areas of the cities, for example, are ridden with disease and vermin.deva wrote:Americans are already disarmed and neutered. Americans are remarkably obedient and passive.b0unce wrote:And blame republicans/democrats for all their problems, for another 8 yrs. repeat ad infinitum until americans are disarmed and neutered.
UTENZIL a tool... of the muse.
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Pitch Black
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- Location: New Zealand
- Contact:
-Herman Göring, speaking to in Gustave Gilbert, chronicled inNuremberg Diarymikemc wrote:The broad mass of the nation ... will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one. If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger-- it works the same in any country.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Diary
Gilbert's the guy who defined evil as the absence of empathy.
Pitch Black wrote:-Herman Göring, speaking to in Gustave Gilbert, chronicled inNuremberg Diarymikemc wrote:The broad mass of the nation ... will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one. If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger-- it works the same in any country.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Diary
Gilbert's the guy who defined evil as the absence of empathy.
DING DING DING excellent round! What do we have for him, Jimmy??!!
The Amana frost free refrigerator, open the door and the light stays on... by Amana!
UTENZIL a tool... of the muse.
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Pitch Black
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- Contact:
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knotkranky
- Posts: 4336
- Joined: Tue Mar 14, 2006 7:08 pm
- Location: la
For cryin out loud!
Just about all of you dig Obama but think he'll lose.
Then it will be so. (" i'll vote for Obama but he's gonna lose, wah wah wah") ... Fuck you
Ineffectual intellectually posing half-empty cynics! You're the problem.
Why place your bet and promote losing it? And why do you quote the worst of what history offers?
Go buy a bible and thump on that for a while you sellers of self prophetic selfishness. Same dif.
You're more dangerous than the McBush fucks, and they're out to beat you. Get a clue and win.
Just about all of you dig Obama but think he'll lose.
Then it will be so. (" i'll vote for Obama but he's gonna lose, wah wah wah") ... Fuck you
Ineffectual intellectually posing half-empty cynics! You're the problem.
Why place your bet and promote losing it? And why do you quote the worst of what history offers?
Go buy a bible and thump on that for a while you sellers of self prophetic selfishness. Same dif.
You're more dangerous than the McBush fucks, and they're out to beat you. Get a clue and win.
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Machinesworking
- Posts: 11551
- Joined: Wed Jun 23, 2004 9:30 pm
- Location: Seattle
Huh? it seems like a lot of people in this thread at least have stated that they see no real difference.knotkranky wrote: Just about all of you dig Obama but think he'll lose.
What bothers me is that the "middle" road people, like yourself, (Obama wanting MORE troops in Afghanistan is definitely not a 'left wing' move!) are much more hateful of the real left than the republicans. The name calling from the middle of the road democrats towards any other party besides their own does more damage than the few votes that the far left gets in the elections.You're more dangerous than the McBush fucks, and they're out to beat you. Get a clue and win.
The only person who wanted to pull out of all our idiotic wars was Ron Paul, so party lines just don't mean shit IMO.
The democratic party wants to win votes from the far left, fucking cater to even the simplest of demands then. Offer real compassion in your foreign policy instead of blow hard crap masking your concessions to the money handlers.
Offer me ideas I can vote for, then I'll take the democrats seriously, but as it stands, it's just the same pack of lies in casual clothes.
I like your new signature line. It really does seem to sum up your posts.b0unce wrote: ...
fucking impotent retard.
Just kidding. When your Tourette's isn't running your keyboard, you can come up with interesting things to say.
Not to mention provocative.
Live 9.1 <> occasionally Reason 4.0.1 <> Reaper.latest! <> Windows 7 on a bespoke Intel Q6600 <> ASUS P5E <> 8GB RAM, M-Audio Delta 2496 and that's it.
Machinesworking wrote:What bothers me is that the "middle" road people, like yourself, (Obama wanting MORE troops in Afghanistan is definitely not a 'left wing' move!) are much more hateful of the real left than the republicans.knotkranky wrote:You're more dangerous than the McBush fucks, and they're out to beat you. Get a clue and win.
That is really an important statement. Same basic dynamic why the dems fought far harder against Nader than Bush. I don't quite understand it.
Are dems afraid of republicans? The old shit flows downhill thing: Someone kicks your ass so you kick the ass of someone farther down the food chain?
I have seen this same basic thing over and over and over. Pacifist liberals talk about 'seeing another's point of view' and the importance of 'non-violence' while the cops are beating the crap out of someone or violating their rights, then being willing to physically assault a radical who is acting in a way they disapprove of.
I have seen it in so many ways... On the street, in organizational meetings, in individual dialog.